Caustic vs Catalyst - What's the difference?
caustic | catalyst |
Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.
Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=8
, passage=The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again;
Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
(optics, computer graphics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
(mathematics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
(informal, chemistry) caustic soda
(chemistry) A substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process.
* 1988 , Biochemistry , 3rd edition, page 177
Someone or something that encourages progress or change.
* 1978 , Ernest George Schwiebert, Trout , Volume 2
* 2004 , Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the making of the modern Middle East , page 76
* 2006 , The Freedom Writers, with Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them , Diary 74
* '>citation
(literature) An inciting incident which that sets the successive conflict into motion.
(automotive) A catalytic converter.
As nouns the difference between caustic and catalyst
is that caustic is any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic while catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process.As an adjective caustic
is capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.caustic
English
Adjective
(en adjective)Synonyms
* (capable of destroying tissue ): acidic, biting, burning, corrosive, searing * (severe, sharp ): bitchy, biting, catty, mordacious, nasty, sarcastic, scathing, sharp, spitefulQuotations
* 1843': "How now!" said Scrooge, '''caustic and cold as ever. — Charles Dickens, ''A Christmas Carol * 1843': The bargain was not concluded as easily as might have been expected though, for Scadder was '''caustic and ill-humoured, and cast much unnecessary opposition in the way — Charles Dickens, ''Martin Chuzzlewit * 1853': Madame Beck esteemed me learned and blue; Miss Fanshawe, '''caustic , ironic, and cynical — Charlotte Bronte, ''Villette * 1857':The Secretary and the Assistant-Secretaries would say little '''caustic things about him to the senior clerks, and seemed somewhat to begrudge him his new honours. — Anthony Trollope, ''The Three Clerks * 1886': this set of worthies, who were only too prone to shut up their emotions with '''caustic words. — Thomas Hardy, ''The Mayor of Casterbridge * 1930s???': though he came too late / To join the martyrs, there was still a place / Among the tempters for a ' caustic tongue / / To test the resolution of the young / With tales of the small failings of the great — W.H.Auden, 'The Quest'Derived terms
* caustic curve * caustic potash * caustic soda * caustic surfaceNoun
(en noun)Derived terms
* lunar causticcatalyst
English
Noun
(en noun)- Enzymes, the catalysts of biological systems, are remarkable molecular devices that determine the pattern of chemical transformations.
- Economic development and integration are working as a catalyst for peace.
- It was a morning baptized by my first cup of coffee, freshly brewed over a gravel-bar fire, while they celebrated with the stronger catalyst of sour-mash whiskey in their fishing-vest cups.
- Israel's fear for the reactor—rather than Egypt's of it—was the greater catalyst for war.
- Rosa Parks was a true catalyst' for change and she was only one person. Hearing about Rosa Parks and her protest showed me that there is hope for me and all the students in Ms. G's classes to truly be ' catalysts for change.